Small-screen gaming laptops are rare because they require serious engineering sleight of hand. The EON13-S walks the line between power and portability, but it would be so much cooler with a custom body.

The Acer Aspire V5-171-6867 crams the horsepower of a full-fledged budget ultrabook into an 11-inch ultraportable, for several hundred dollars less than most equivalent products. It's a great budget laptop to consider, but sacrifices have been made to shrink down that much computer into a tiny package.

The Toshiba Satellite U845 is a serviceable but generic-feeling 14-inch ultrabook that, in a quest to become more affordable, has fallen into a grey zone: not all that compact, not all that rich in features.

The media-geared Toshiba Satellite U845W has an extra-wide 21:9 screen and Harman Kardon speakers, but no DVD or Blu-ray player. The screen is a novelty act that offers some benefits, but it's really no better than your standard laptop for most uses.

Lightweight, comfortable, and with a good feature set, the Sony Vaio S 13P might be expensive compared with other Windows laptops offering a similar package, but it beats Apple's 13-inch MacBook Pro, for the same price.